


Heathen

by Cyrelia_J



Series: Rain Inside Your Eyes [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Anxiety, Asexual Character, Genetically Engineered Beings, Heavy Angst, Isolation, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Minor Violence, Pining, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 06:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14182800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: Sequel to "Brain"After his genetically enhanced status is discovered, they tell him he doesn't have to hide any longer. They tell him it's a burden lifted. They tell him everything will be fine.Julian Bashir is very much not fine.He didn’t want to “be strong”. He wanted to be weak. He wanted his serums. But that wasn’t how the narrative was supposed to go. So he keeps on smiling.And everything continues to fall apart.Much garashir pining (Garak shows up but not very prominently in person)The nature of the Garak/Ziyal is all from Julian's POV so it's open to interpretation.





	Heathen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wcdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wcdarling/gifts).



> I don't know that this is the direction everyone had in mind when thinking of a sequel but this is where my brain took me so I ran with it. I do want to write a third part but this gave me trouble for a number of reasons so I don't know when that will happen. People had commented nicely in the last story of how real and palpable the angst was. I had to pull myself into a really vivid and uncomfortable place to write this so for me. I don't think I've ever had a panic attack thinking about a story [but hey first time for everything] so what I'm saying is this story is a lot more intense as an extra warning.
> 
> For the other part, on the matter of Julian's asexuality. I'm a person who unfortunately is almost completely incapable of not viewing things through a sexual lens; I tend to sexualize everything (which comes with it's own problems...) So writing Julian as ace is so opposite most of what I write and how I think that I really had to like... not write this as me. I wanted to be genuine with this as possible and felt for the story this worked well so any feedback on that bit (somewhat minor though it is) would be much appreciated.
> 
> Dedicated to wcdarling without whom this story never would have been written and thanks to everyone reading!
> 
> Also yes, it's another songfic because Heathens is just fucking haunting.

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_Please don't make any sudden moves_

_You don't know the half of the abuse_

 

It’s the three hundred and eighty fourth day since Julian has had his last injection. It had taken nearly a hundred days for the serum to completely work its way out of his system. Every day he longed to go back. But they all said that he could stop hiding now. It wasn’t necessary. He was Julian. He was their friend. Why did he think he had to hide in the first place? Of course, he said, how foolish of him. How silly, how _stupid_ of him to ever doubt them. They smiled. He smiled back. _Yes, and “I will return with limbs of iron, with dark skin and angry eyes: in this mask they will think I belong to a strong race. I will have gold. I will be brutal and indolent......Saved.”_ He is the redemption story and he is saved and so it goes...

 

_Julian stands in front of the mirror in the holoprogam and shatters it with his fist._

 

Richard “god in his own mind” Bashir told him before they carted him off that he could finally cut out the nonsense of denying himself, of making himself less. He told Julian that he wasn’t Harrison Bergeron, forced to be one of millions. He told him that he could shine, that he could make them _proud_ now, that he could be everything that he was supposed to be, everything that they’d _paid_ for. They said they were proud of him before. Julian realized they were lying. And Julian wasn’t Harrison Bergeron, he was Clane, he was the mutant of Van Vogt’s Empire of the Atom, a misfit who never asked to be born, who was kept alive by little more than vanity, who they all came to fear just as they worshipped him. Julian could imagine he was created from the same ignorant minds who worshipped the atomic bomb as a God.

Julian almost wanted to ask Starfleet if the Federation could make an exception just this once and give his father the death penalty. He didn’t. He just smiled. He thanked them for their kindness. He thanked his father for his sacrifice. He sighed in relief that he could “be himself.” He smiled for Miles when he told him that he was the same Julian as ever. He laughed when Garak told him that his penchant for deception raised Julian’s potential in his estimation. He demurred gratefully when they asked him if he wanted to talk. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to “be strong”. He wanted to be weak. He wanted his serums. But that wasn’t how the narrative was supposed to go. So he kept on smiling. Even when they called him arrogant. Even when the admiration turned to resentful derision. Julian kept smiling. 

 

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_Please don't make any sudden moves_

_You don't know the half of the abuse_

 

Julian’s hearing was too sensitive now. He could hear every breath, every whisper around him until he thought he would go mad. In desperation he asked Quark how he handled it. The Ferengi had told him with some dark envy that if he was Julian he’d be able to use his position, his _gifts_ to net himself a fortune in secrets. Julian’s vision was too sharp, so precise that it gave him headaches. Nurse Jabara had said it must be _nice_ now during surgery to have eyes so good. Julian smiled as he tried to focus on her and every minuscule motion of her face almost gave him a migraine. Julian agreed affably. He didn’t look at her when he said it. He stopped looking at people in the eyes if it could be helped. Their movements were too painful. He stopped looking at them at all, instead finding every fixed safe point of the station to keep himself sane. The whispers of his “changing” grew louder.

 

_“It’s okay Julian, you don’t have to pretend. I appreciate your doing everything you can for Tekeny.”_

_“I don’t understand...”_

_“They told me your enhancements make it hard to feel things like... like other people. So it’s okay if you can’t.”_

 

_Julian throws one of the dining room chairs in the holosuite into the wall breaking it._

 

Julian’s strength returned and he almost couldn’t control it. He was terrified to touch anyone. He jerked back almost violently when anyone tried. He had to relearn his grasp, relearn the tensile strength of everything he touched, reteach himself how to eat in the confines of his own quarters. He stopped taking lunches with Garak because his hands shook too much when they were all watching him. And then Garak met Ziyal and stopped asking him. Garak said that he understood... that it must be so difficult to be around them, that he was changed and perhaps might want a different beginning. They had toasted that final lunch to “new beginnings”. Garak went to join Ziyal in the holosuite. Julian went back to his quarters and vomited up everything that he’d ate.

 

_Welcome to the room of people_

_Who have rooms of people that they loved one day_

_Docked away_

_Just because we check the guns at the door_

_Doesn't mean our brains will change from hand grenades_

_You're lovin' on the psychopath sitting next to you_

_You're lovin' on the murderer sitting next to you_

_You'll think, "How'd I get here, sitting next to you?"_

_But after all I've said, please don't forget_

 

Julian could no longer cry. He’d rolled over on the bathroom floor after he’d thrown up and he could feel the stinging behind his eyes. He could feel the burn of his sinuses and the lump in his throat. He sobbed; dry bitter sobs praying that something would come and he half clawed at his face nearly digging his fingers into his own eyes to rip at them so they’d bleed and he’d feel the wetness down his cheeks. He settled for slamming his head back into the wall with a scream muffled into his hand. He told himself it was better this way. Garak looked so _happy_. Ziyal was strong; Julian was a pathetic wreck who couldn’t bear the burden of his “advantages”. Ziyal was beautiful, intelligent, had all the potential in the world, had a whole life in front of her and she could give Garak everything that Julian couldn’t. He watched their fingers touch, saw their looks shared, saw that connection and knew that he’d been deluding himself into thinking he’d ever be enough. Julian stopped with the silly silent prayers that Garak would ever decide against a vibrant young woman in favor of a broken android who only wanted to fall asleep with his head on Garak’s lap.

He broke nearly everything in his room that afternoon and had a holosuite program written so that he could do it again. He broke the room over and over but nothing changed. His mind still tormented him. His memories were too vivid: too immediate. Nothing could pass in front of his eyes without that hyper analysis and the noise in his head never stopped. He had to avoid Garak’s shop because the colors and patterns of all the fabric overwhelmed him. He heard the whispers about that as well. He saw Ziyal in there more frequently taking his place. She deserved to take him place. She was flesh and blood.She was _real._ He started using the holosuites twice a week. He added breakable windows and relaxed the safety protocols because he needed to feel the sting of the shattering glass.

 

_“I’m surprised to see you, doctor. I’d thought that my company may have grown to dull for you.”_

_“I’m just... here for my shirts, Garak. Unless I mean unless you wanted to-”_

_“No no, that won’t be necessary. I have them here. You might have a care for the work involved in the mending though if you can be bothered to think of others for a moment.”_

 

_Julian screams until it hurts and breaks every window in the room._

 

Julian was wrong after all. He wasn’t a monster. He was something far worse. He was an android, a Nexus-6 fugitive brought into the light. But he doesn’t dream of electric sheep. He doesn’t dream of anything anymore. He’s incapable of dreaming. He can only hibernate like a machine. He wonders as he had his entire adult life if his enhancements are the reason that he doesn’t feel sexual desire. Julian had said to his father that he didn’t understand the interest, the obsession. Richard Bashir used to laugh it off and say he’d understand when he grew older. He never did. His father then said that they didn’t pay for something broken and that it was all in his head. He tried. He couldn’t do it. Palis said that he was likely asexual and that they were better off as friends. He hated that he didn’t know if that was the result of his father’s butchery or if that was just him.

Leeta had told him that it was merely the will of the Prophets and if he prayed on it he’d be restored; he didn’t see that there should be anything _to_ restore and that he thought that she accepted him. She said that she thought if he’d had more faith then things could be different between them- she didn’t understand how he could enjoy the feel of her naked breasts to his face for its own sake. There had to be something off about him. Julian didn’t think that if she’d gone to sleep one day and woken up the next day violated, broken, horribly changed into something sick and twisted that she’d still believe in a kind and merciful God. God, Julian said, if he- if _it_ existed at all was not kind. The only God in Julian’s world was a cruel god who wore his father’s face and told him that he was unworthy and ungrateful. Richard Bashir was the God of broken children, the God of failure.

 

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_Please don't make any sudden moves_

_You don't know the half of the abuse_

 

The more that his enhancements started to manifest themselves: the more everyone stared, the louder the whispers grew. He couldn’t stay connected when the noise was too loud. He could feel everyone start to pull away from him. Jadzia didn’t ask him teasing advice on Tongo calculations. Jake didn’t ask him his opinions on his stories. Miles stopped asking him to spend time for recreation outside of their darts game. Miles had less and less to say to him. Julian knew that after Gaia Miles hated him. Julian didn’t understand how leaving thousands of people to die made him less than human. Miles didn’t understand how desperately Julian prayed the ship wouldn’t make it back so that he wouldn’t have to return to the station.

 

_“It’s not logical Julian, it’s not putting this shit in a computer and spitting out numbers this is Keiko and Molly and Yoshi and I don’t need input from Data! I need a human being not a machine and if you want do that then you don’t need to be here!”_

 

_Julian broke everything in the room again when they returned._

 

Miles had also apologized when they returned. Julian said he forgave him. One of the young officers, McKinley, had propositioned him asking if it might be like being with an android like Data from the Enterprise. She touched his arm like his skin would somehow feel different to the touch. She could see that her actions upset him and she apologized for her thoughtlessness. Julian knew he had stared too long into the distance not understanding before he said that he forgave her. He still made sure to say it. Of course he did. Forgiveness was human. That’s what Julian was no matter how much it seemed to be slipping away from him. He didn’t want to forgive any of them. But he did.

 

And when Garak returned from Empok Nor and refused to even look at him, he began working on the second serum... 

 

_We don't deal with outsiders very well_

_They say newcomers have a certain smell_

_Yeah, I trust issues, not to mention_

_They say they can smell your intentions_

_You're lovin' on the freakshow sitting next to you_

_You'll have some weird people sitting next to you_

_You'll think "How did I get here, sitting next to you?"_

_But after all I've said, please don't forget_

_(Watch it, watch it)_

 

Julian swallows as he leans against the supply locker breathing. He’s breathing heavily, reminding himself that he’s human. Humans breathe. Humans hurt. Humans… There’s a stutter to his breath then. He looks up sharply thinking there might be someone else there. There isn’t. There hasn’t been this entire time as long as he hasn’t had new patients. Every night since their exile he’s come in to the medical supply room on the Defiant at whatever time his hectic shifts will allow. He rarely sleeps. They don’t think that he needs it. Every night he leaves the lights off as he carefully prepares the serums that he had created. They weren’t perfect. They weren’t complete. The attack on the station had come too soon.  But he still grabbed them during the evacuation anyway. It was just a precaution, he’d told himself. It was a failsafe in case something should happen. 

Every night he picks up the hypospray and leans against the locker staring out in the quiet. Except it’s not quiet because he can hear the noise of all the machines loud in his ears, in his head. He stares out hating that all the shapes in the room are as vivid as daylight. And every night he breathes, he bites into his hand, and silently shudder sobs dry until he puts everything back and returns to his shared quarters. No on asks him where he’s been. No one cares. It’s been ninety days that he’s been doing this now, each time telling himself that he’s weak, that he’s shit, that he’s nothing but a fucked up machine who’s wrecked everything he’s ever touched.  And then he slinks away like a coward.

 

Until this afternoon.

Until he saw Garak.

 

 _“It’s that kind of smug, superior attitude that makes people like you so unpopular…”_  

_I can’t do this anymore._

_“You act like you haven’t a care in the world.”_

_I can’t do this anymore._

_“You’re not genetically engineered, you’re a Vulcan.”_

_I’m not fucking doing this anymore!_

 

Until tonight.

 

All the flag waving glad handed politically correct _shit_ isn’t going to fix his life. Federation platitudes about tolerance aren’t going to make people stop talking about him, they’re not going to make people stop wondering. Nothing is going to make Garak take back his words. Garak thinks he’s become cold, distant, arrogant. Garak doesn’t even think his smile is human anymore. _Not so boyish... I know what you meant. I get it I..._ Julian shakes his head. He needs to steady his hands and do it because he’s already been in here too long. 

He looks at the hypospray and the syringes on the table along with that little clear bottle. It’s not the same serum as before. The serum in the vial injected into the muscle will start to tighten up some of the muscles, will start to weaken some of the myofibrillar growth, density, followed by the slow of electrical impulses through the nerves. Risk of ultimate full paralysis twenty five point five percent. Risk of partial paralysis over time twenty five point five percent. But that’s an either or so the total remains twenty five point five percent. He doesn’t care.

The hypospray will suppress certain brain activity, and work to widen the gap in neural activity at rest and at work; because right now it’s at homeostasis. Which means his mind can’t shut off. It will couple in slowing his reaction times so there’s a chance that he may fall below average levels- nineteen percent on that. There’s also a thirty two point seven percent chance (ha) that it will kill him outright. There’s a fifteen percent chance that it will erode him slowly. It’s reckless. It’s selfish. They need him as he is to have every chance against The Dominion. He doesn’t _fucking_ care.

Julian takes the hypospray and with it a deep breath. He can feel his heart pounding so loud that everything else fades around him. He’s scared. He’s lonely. He doesn’t want to die alone if this ends up killing him. The syringe will hurt but the serum in the vial may only paralyze him. The hypospray is what may kill him. _Thirty two point seven…Fifteen..._ Julian laughs bitterly. His hands shake as he brings it to his neck. He shuts his eyes and then opens them again. But then he thinks that he doesn’t want the last thing he sees to be the dark of the medical supply room on the broken and beaten ship. Julian shuts his eyes again and pulls Garak’s face to mind. God what a pathetic romantic cliché. He doesn’t care. That’s the smile that makes him the happiest- even if it belongs to someone else now.

“Is thirty two point seven percent less insulting if the numbers are reversed Garak?” he asks softly as he breathes a few more times. He laughs, an ugly sound to himself.

 

And then he injects it.

 

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_Please don't make any sudden moves_

_You don't know the half of the abuse_

 

There was a book that Julian read as a child called Flowers for Algernon. Rather, his father made him read it at the suggestion of one of the doctors on Adigeon Prime to help him cope. He still remembers it- every word. It was a book about a little mouse named Algernon who suddenly became smart, or really it was a book about a man named Charlie who was given a treatment which turned him from a slow unfortunate man to a genius. In the story Charlie soon realized that all the people he thought were his friends didn’t really like him, they were just having a laugh at him and one would think that him being all smart would fix that but... they all knew how that one ends. As for Charlie, he realized that the changes weren’t permanent when Algernon lost his intelligence and died. And Charlie knew that he too would inevitably revert to what he once was as well. That was how Julian knew it was written by a man of normal intelligence. Because a _mutant_ like him would realize what a fucking _curse_ this was and how he would give anything to be normal. Perhaps he _is_ giving everything to be normal.

 

Because that’s when he falls.

And that’s when he sees Garak standing in the open doorway.

 

So he’s going to die then. Julian blinks as Garak slowly walks over to him, kneeling down. Thirty two point seven percent. He almost laughs at the irony. He supposes there are worse ways to die. He can feel Garak activating his COM badge as he tries and tells him to stop. Garak stops. Julian knows Garak is looking to the hypospray. His voice is soft, even, and Julian thinks it’s a lovely voice to die by. He doesn’t understand why Garak sounds so calm.

“Far be it for me to call your abilities as a doctor into question, but I seem to remember you telling me when the matter of your enhancements came to light that the treatments that you had used to conceal your… abilities were already close to failing and that you would be unable to recreate the process.”

 

He almost lies.

But he doesn’t.

 

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_(Watch it)_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_(Watch it)_

_All my friends are heathens, take it slow_

_(Watch it)_

_Wait for them to ask you who you know_

_(Watch it)_

 

“They were and they would have,” Julian says unable to speak above a whisper. Everything is too... muddled... too tired. “That’s why this one had to be different. That’s why the Vulcan had to use all his high powered processing to make a better one.” Garak is silent as a graveyard, still like granite at those words. Julian doesn’t imagine that it will be long before someone comes in. He doesn’t imagine that anyone else on board has the ability to save him if the failure is what he thinks it is. 

“Of course. Just as I-”

“Wait. I... I need to...” Julian cuts him off. Whatever else Garak was about to say there isn’t any time. Time; a commodity more precious than latinum, than dilithium, than anything else in the universe.  His body is a dead weight. He can’t see him- that is until Garak lifts his head, his kneeling lap a pillow. It feels just as nice as he’s always imagined.

“Julian-”

“Please Garak... I...” But he falters. He falters there’s and it’s just such a perfect _shit_ ending to the sum of the life of Julian Bashir. Garak is looking at him and he can’t say it. His tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth and he’s having trouble breathing but he just. Can’t. Say it. He’s dying on the lap of a spy, an interrogator, a _murderer_ and he’s worried about burdening his conscience with something as trite as his feelings. God he’s such a fucking worthless wreck. He can hear his father laughing it him.

_Alright, you tell me then. Tell me! If you’re the lord and master, father then how do you tell someone that you love them?! How do you tell them when you’re dying and the words have no meaning? Or worse when they mean everything and you’ve left a person with nothing but a burden of conscience? How can you let the only meaning you give their lives be guilt?How can I tell you that I love you when it’s obviously a lie? How can I say that when you already love a woman who deserves you infinitely more me? How can I even think that I... that I love you if love is selfless and I’m just so relieved that you’re here and I’m not alone that nothing else matters? How can I tell you that I love you if love is all consuming passion and flame and I just want to hold your hand and breathe against your neck and be your warmth for the rest of my life? How can I love you when it... when it hurts this badly?_

 

And that’s when he realizes that there are tears streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry.”

It hurts. It hurts so badly.

“I love you.”

 

_Why'd you come, you knew you should have stayed_

_(It's blasphemy)_

_I tried to warn you just to stay away_

_And now they're outside ready to bust_

_It looks like you might be one of us_

**Author's Note:**

> I want to make this clear since I know I won't read or go near anything with major character death usually and rely on tags like a mofo. Julian isn't dead and won't be dead and that will be explained whenever the last story is written :)
> 
> Also, I pulled a lot of quotes and ideas from other places and stories like Rimbaud, Van Vogt, Vonnegut to name a few so any questions on anything I'll be glad to answer.


End file.
